Where the Weather Meets the Road, Report in Brief

W here The W eaTher MeeTs The road a research agenda for IMprovIng road W eaTher servIces On her way to pick up her children from band practice, Karen notes the dark clouds of a thunderstor m rapidly approaching. Meanwhile, computers at a private meteorological service are using data from the National W eather Service (NWS) and the Kansas Department of Transportation to produce a highly specic “pathcast” for the storm, indicating which areas are expected to be affected. Karen’s in-vehicl e communicatio n system beeps three times and relays a message that gusty winds and heavy rain, with the possibility of ash ooding, will reach her location within 30 minutes. Concerned about the ooding of a nearby creek, Karen tells the hands-free communication system her destination and requests an alternate route. The system integrates both weather and traffic information and provides an alternate route that allows Karen to circumvent the creek. Weather signicantly affects the safety and capacity of the nation’s roadways. Each year, adverse weather is associated with more than 1.5 million vehicular accidents, which result in about 800,000 injuries and 7,000 fatalities. Incle ment weather, such as snow , rain, fog, and ice, can greatly impair roadway conditio ns. As a result, drivers endure the frustratio n of more than 500 million hours of weather-related delay annually on highways, affecting both personal lives and economic productivity. Hurricanes and severe snowstorms can cripple regional transportation systems and cause many lost work days for companies and governments. Too often, people believe that little can be done about the adverse effects of weather on roadway transportation. On the contrary, we are tantalizingly close to providing drivers and trafc managers with the kind of real-time weather and routing information described above in Karen’s scenario, thanks to advances made by both the transportation and meteorological communities. Over the course of the next 15 years, a focused road weather research program that brings these communities together could deliver much better road weather services to the nation, saving lives and reducing injuries while improving efciency of highway systems. Where the Weather Meets the Road: A Research Agenda for Improving Road Weather Services , a National Academies report, recommends that the Federal Highway Administration (FHW A) take the lead in creating a coordinated nation al road weather research program. The program’s main objective would be to bring together the weather and transportation research communities to maximize the use of available information and technologies, identify and support research priorities, and effectively implement new scientic and technological advances.

Where the Weather Meets the Road, Report in Brief

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